`Windmills` - Terror And A Bit Of High-tack

February 07, 1988|By Clifford Terry, TV/radio critic.

``In the last five years, the world has seen the deaths of Anwar Sadat and Indira Gandhi and the attempted assassination of the Pope,`` observes an unregenerate bad guy toward the outset of-Sidney Sheldon alert-``Windmills of the Gods,`` a four-hour mini-series that airs at 8 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday on CBS-Ch. 2.

``Our accomplishments are pretty impressive, I`m sure you`ll agree. We are unified by one purpose-the destruction of detente-and will accomplish that goal by any means necessary.``

The scoundrel`s group, it soon becomes evident, is Patriots of Freedom, a supersecret ``unholy alliance`` of Communists and far-right-wingers who are out to stop any U.S. coziness with the Warsaw Pact countries-the Commies because they think it`s a plot to destroy the Eastern Bloc, the righties because they`re convinced it spells disaster for the West. Turns out that this bunch is so sinister that when a Washington Post investigative reporter gets too close, he is blown up when pressing the remote control on his TV set.

But the most pressing matter at hand is the assassination of the newly appointed ambassador to Romania, Mary Ashley, and her two adolescent children, whom an international hit man named Angel plans to knock off at the embassy`s annual 4th of July shindig.

Earlier, the president of the United States (Michael Moriarty, affecting a peculiar rubesville accent) announced he had initiated a pilot program to improve relations with the Iron Curtain countries, and planned to use a rank amateur instead of an intransigent career diplomat. Thus, he nominated the wheatfield-wholesome University of Kansas political science professor and author of articles for Foreign Affairs magazine-a role obviously tailormade for Jaclyn Smith-even though she has never been out of the country and, if that weren`t enough, can`t stand champagne.

``I`m a teacher, not a politician,`` Ashley demurs when approached by the president`s liaison (Jeffrey DeMunn), but changes her mind after her physician husband is killed in a mysterious auto accident. Getting a big publicity buildup, she makes the cover of Newsweek (as do all ambassadors to Romania)

and dominates the evening network news.

Taking her two kids from the Heartland to the heart of diplomatic darkness, she finds herself deeply resented by her embassy colleagues, who include the rumpled deputy chief of staff Mike Slade (Robert Wagner). Trying his best to get her sent home to Junction City, he dismisses her as a bush leaguer and suggests, because of her personality, she should have been assigned to Iceland.

Ashley, however, is one tough cookie. Shortly after her arrival, she sends a staff member packing for dispatching a cable without her authority. That done, she becomes the Da Vinci of diplomacy, as she gets charges dismissed against an American student framed on a drug rap; persuades the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to approve a loan to Romania; wheedles charming, but despotic, president Alex Ionescu (Franco Nero) into giving permission for church officials to visit the States; lobbies for Jewish dissidents to obtain exit visas; requisitions a supersonic Air Force jet to transport botulism-poisoning serum, thus saving the life of Ionescu`s son;

gives asylum to a star ballerina trying to defect; gets it on with a handsome, enigmatic, Paul Henreid-like doctor attached to the French Embassy

(Christopher Cazenove of ``Dynasty`` fame); and deals with the fact that someone is slipping arsenic into her morning coffee. As Mike Slade himself must admit, ``The lady`s got grit.``

Unhappily, ``Windmills of the Gods`` hasn`t got much of anything, except for a relatively interesting denouement that culminates literally in fireworks. One of those ``sweeping`` suspense sagas that bounces around from Finland to England to Russia to Bulgaria to Chile (spelled ``Chili`` in the print I saw), and ham-handedly directed by Lee Phillips from John Gay`s adaptation of the Sheldon best seller, it contains some tantalizingly tacky moments, but not nearly enough to justify two nights away from the bowling lanes.

Worse, it even lacks the delicious dialogue of the last Sidney Sheldon/

Jaclyn Smith television collaboration, ``Rage of Angels: The Story Continues,`` in which, you surely will recall, the No. 1 nasty hissed to a socialite type, ``I`d kill you, if you hadn`t already died of face-lift poisoning,`` then warned a torture victim that if he didn`t come up with the right information, ``you`ll spend the rest of your blind time sitting on a wooden platform with your heart sending out signals to limbs that no longer exist.``

It is also evident that the ``Windmills`` performances will not be summoned up at Emmy-nomination time. Smith`s portrayal of what she has called ``a character full of growth and change`` is beyond bland, while Wagner, as usual, is studiously casual, a veritable walking La-Z-Boy.

In supporting roles-besides the curious casting of those two cinematic discards, Moriarty and Nero, as the heads of state-Ari Meyers (``Kate & Allie``), playing the ambassador`s teenage daughter to the point of embarrassment, seems to be constantly smiling, perhaps because she`s gotten an advance peek at the script, while the egregiously awful Susan Tyrrell again is called upon to play a slatternly slut. However, this time out, suiting up as the sole conduit to the international assassin, she does draw the series`

best piece of business. Making love to a scudsy minor character, she proceeds to get rid of him by dropping her electric hair dryer into his bath water.